Inertial separators or so-called cyclone vapour-liquid separators are well known in the prior art. Typically, such separators comprise a cylindrical or tubular container and a tangentially oriented inlet, by way of which a two-phase fluid comprising gaseous and liquid components can be delivered to the interior chamber of the container thereby imposing a vortex or swirling motion of the two-phase fluid.
Centrifugal forces arising from the swirling or vortex-like flow of the two-phase fluid cause the liquid components to spread radially outwardly to impinge on the cylindrical inner wall surface of the container. There, liquid droplets will form that are to be discharged via a respective outlet. The remaining gaseous phase may exit the container via a separate outlet.
The degree of gas liquid separation strongly depends on the geometry of the container and its hydrodynamic properties. Since centrifugal forces strongly depend on the radius and internal diameter of the container as well as on the flow velocity of the two-phase fluid, an increase of the efficiency of separating gaseous and liquid phases generally requires comparatively large dimensions of such cyclone or inertial separators.
Document EP 1 323 478 A2 discloses a vapour-liquid separator having an inlet tube upstream of an outer tube, which partially constitutes an introduction path of said vapour-liquid separator. There, a narrow plate twisted at a predetermined pitch is fixedly provided within the inlet tube in order to impart a swirling state to the vapour-liquid two-phase fluid.
However, such an embodiment requires a particular shape and arrangement of the inlet tube, thereby limiting the field of application of such cyclone separators. When such separators are to be implemented in an automotive environment, the inertial or cyclone separator should be universally adaptable to a variety of different places of installation. Moreover, the overall geometry of the inertial separator should be comparatively compact and small in size. Despite geometric restrictions, the inertial separator should provide an improved gas liquid phase separation. The separator should further be light-weight and easy as well as cost efficient in terms of manufacturing and assembly.